‘Ivy League Judges Taking Trump Off the Ballot Would Cause This Country to Explode’
David Brooks on the Colorado Supreme Court: “Has he been convicted of the — of offending the Insurrection Act? Has he been even charged with violating the Insurrection Act? No.”
New York Times ‘conservative’ columnist David Brooks just got something right. During an appearance on PBS NewsHour, Brooks was asked about the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court to remove Trump from the state’s ballot, and he said it was a bad choice.
Like many others, he also predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court would reverse the decision.
Transcript via Real Clear Politics:
Well, why is Donald Trump, why did he become president? Why are there populist movements across every Western country? It’s because a lot of people in a lot of these countries, me included, think a highly educated cohort of, in this case Americans, have created a hereditary meritocratic class. They have too — they have a lot of education. They now have a lot of cultural power. They control the media. They control the universities. They increasingly control the courts.
And a lot of Americans say they have too much power. We’re going to be populists. We’re going to have an uprising. And then you have a series of judges with their Ivy League law degrees who come in and say, sorry, we’re taking your guy off the ballot? That would explode this country and, in my view, explode it under the most dubious possible circumstances, for kicking off for the Insurrection Act.
Has he been convicted of the — of offending the Insurrection Act? Has he been even charged with violating the Insurrection Act? No. And so, to me, it would look like and I think would be just an elite power grab to deny people their democratic rights. I assume the Supreme Court will throw this out anyway. But that’s my view.
The video is cued to start at the 8:22 mark, just press play:
The media is currently hyping reported threats to these judges. Funny, I don’t recall their concern when conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court were being threatened outside their own homes.
ABC News reports:
Police increase security for Colorado Supreme Court justices in wake of Donald Trump ruling
Denver police are increasing security for members of the Colorado Supreme Court after last week’s ruling that Donald Trump should be disqualified from running for president under the 14th Amendment.
“The Denver Police Department is currently investigating incidents directed at Colorado Supreme Court justices and will continue working with our local, state and federal law enforcement partners to thoroughly investigate any reports of threats or harassment,” Denver police said in a statement Tuesday. “Due to the open investigations and safety and privacy considerations, we will not be providing details of these investigations. The Department is providing extra patrols around justice’s residences in Denver and will provide additional safety support if/as requested.”
CNN grudgingly reported that there were no specified threats.
CNN uncomfortably admits the FBI haven't identified any actionable threats against Colorado Justices.
— “No specific threats”
— Denver PD responded to a single “hoax report”
— Feds are now just combing through social media for “any threat of violence” pic.twitter.com/qzGcEGncNF— Bill D'Agostino (@Banned_Bill) December 26, 2023
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
Brooks is often useful as a translator in that he can occasionally convey popular sentiment that exists outside the insular DC/NoVa/NYC enclaves of our credentialed, self selected elite.
That’s an interesting point. I always considered Brooks a bit of a buffoon and mostly a democrat. But you may have a point there.
Brooks doesn’t really align with the populist center/right movement but he can understand the discontent and the merits of the arguments brought by them. It hasn’t blunted his neocon instincts or his preferences for big govt/corporatism but he is capable of translating and informing the ‘elites’ of the blue enclave, who are in fact quite insular even provincial re what goes on outside their backyards..
Brooks is the visual and auditory exemplar of an overeducated, ineffectual American male desperately trying to fit in with the cool kids in the class.
Blind squirrel stumbled on a nut.
It’s more than that. Brooks doesn’t actually believe in the same things as the populist center/right but he is capable of observing the arguments made and then pointing out their legitimacy to the ideologically insular, politically provincial powers in the blue enclaves.
Jan 6th was the furthest thing from an insurrection.
You want to talk insurrection – in 2020 the riots and arson and looting around the nation were all insurrection attempts – and I kept saying so at the time. Trying to take down every symbol of AMerica was part of a clear insurrection. In Seattle and Portland, you actually had government officials GIVING AWAY United States territory to try to create new nations. That was the very definition of “rebellion” and government officials, in their official capacity, blessed these seizures (attempted) of American territory.
Jan 6th was a minor riot, mostly egged on by the Capitol police attacking the protesters without provocation and then opening the Capitol to the great bulk of people, who they later helped to jail for ridiculous amounts of time. The only insurrection that happened with Jan 6th was the insane abuse of power that the dems exercised while lying about what actually happened. People forget how Traitor Joe made Washington D.C. an army garrison for a couple of months after he slimed into office. The press helped by not showing any pictures of the crazy fortifications they put up to start their fevered, insurrectionist lies about Jan 6th.
As Wednesday Addams (I think) once said, “don’t mistake my silence for acceptance. No one plans a murder out loud.”
Indeed. When somebody gets teed-off enough, he’ll skip right over the threat phase and go directly to the execution. Just like Audrey Whats-her-sex did.
Vocalizing a threat simply gives the target a warning. It is tactically unwise.
Often cite John Sevier and his “Overmountain” men. The Wautaugua Association families in the remote TN/VA/NC wilderness mostly wanted to be left alone. When British major Patrick Ferguson publicly threatened to march his forces over the mountains and “lay fire and sword” to their settlements, the overmountain men didn’t protest, complain, threaten, or conspire in public. They simply armed and provisioned themselves, marched over the mountains the other way, found Ferguson and his men and…..killed them. Mopped up the remainder, hanged a dozen or so to leave a message. Then…went home.
Causing the country to explode is the point. The pieces of refuse at the DoJ and the 3 letter agencies are looking for any excuse to further punish their political enemies.
Make sure you watch the whole video so you can see how they misrepresent what Trump has said about illegal immigrants.
Illegal aliens. They are not “immigrants” of any sort.
lol didn’t see that!
Actually I refer to them as hostile foreign invaders. I have been given to understand that by the end of the month more invaders will have crossed our southern borders than Allied troops landed on Normandy beachhead on June 6, 1944.
Subotai Bahadur
They are immigrants. They have immigrated. They were living in another country and now they are living here. That is the definition of immigration. They have done so illegally, which is why they are illegal immigrants.
In exactly the same way, you would not deny that an illegal driver is a driver, and an illegal hunter is a hunter. Someone who illegally sells drugs is an illegal pharmacist and someone who sells stolen goods is an illegal businessman. The illegality of what someone does doesn’t change what it is that he does.
“Immigration” is a process, overseen and conducted according by the government of the targeted country. One cannot “imigrate” oneself.
Ignore the word “according”
That is absolute bullshit that you just made up this minute. You are a damned liar. The English language is not your property and you are not entitled to make up new definitions for words. Everyone immigrates by themselves. The act of Immigration does not involve government in any manner whatsoever.
Do you understand that for most of history, and even for much of the USA’s history, there were no such things as immigration laws? Nothing in the US constitution authorizes Congress to regulate immigration, which is a problem for principled originalists; and the reason is because it never occurred to the framers that anyone would want Congress to do so. Open borders were the default everywhere in the world, and it was assumed that would continue to be the case. So according to you there was no such thing as immigration until 1875! Can you see how ridiculous that is?
“That is absolute bullshit that you just made up this minute. You are a damned liar. ”
Nah. He’s not.
You’re just your usual know nothing self.
You’re thinking of migration. All life migrates.
IMmigration, however, is the formalized state process whereby one sentient moves from one claimed territory into another.
Azathoth, you’re a damned liar too. You just made that up, just as he made up what he wrote. You’re both immoral, unethical people, and stupid too, to think anyone could believe such an obvious lie.
Not only does no dictionary in the world support your bizarre claim, it would also mean that nobody ever immigrated anywhere before there were laws and formalities governing it.
Immigration simply means migrating from another country into the country in question. Every act of international migration is by definition both an emigration and an immigration. One migrates from country A to country B, by emigrating from A and immigrating to B. In A one is then an emigrant and in B one is then an immigrant. And this is true regardless of what laws exist in either country, or whether one has complied with them, if any. People who came to the USA before the 1870s were immigrants, just like people who come today. They were also emigrants from wherever they started. And they were migrants as well. Which of these three words should be used for them depends entirely on the context.
If the courts in the 1870s had been originalist they would have struck down the federal immigration laws then, and we might still not have any now.
When humans engaged in migration BEFORE there were countries it was called MIGRATION.
They MIGRATED from one territory into another.
When towns, cities, city-states and later kingdoms and countries appeared systems were devised to control these migrations, immigration systems.
Because now someone was keeping track.
But you go on being a know-nothing. It’s so amusing.
LOL.
That’s retarded. But, you’re a legal retard, so there’s that.
You cannot be an “immigrant” if you are illegal and can be thrown out at any moment. Someone who breaks into your house is not an “illegal guest”.
Tell me … what the hell is wrong with you?
There’s nothing wrong with me, but there’s a hell of a lot wrong with you. You’re a horrible, terrible person. You have no regard for the truth, or for right and wrong, or for anything decent. And you’re an idiot on top of that.
The definition of migration is nothing more or less than moving from one place to another. Migrating into a country is called immigration, and migrating out of a country is called emigration. Obviously every migrant is both an emigrant (in the source country) and an immigrant (in the destination country). Government and laws play no role in the definition, which makes sense since laws governing migration are relatively recent, much younger than these words.
There is no requirement for the migration to be legal to be an immigrant. Some of you get wrapped around the axle about some dumb shit. I don’t care if you want to call them aliens or immigrants. The “illegal” part is the important part.
THAR SHE BLOWS!! That was a great takedown of the Millhouse Miasma of Logic! Anytime someone questions his “eloquent eruditions of education” get the immediate vulgar attacks!! He has to be one of those paid trolls – no one would go to the extremes to be SO WRONG about SO MANY articles unless they were paid or simply (as we say in the South) “a little tetched in the head”!!
WTFF??
You are a parody of yourself. A farce.
He is, what they call, “a fence”. He’s not an “illegal businessman”. He’s a criminal. A pickpocket is also not an “illegal businessman” – taking your money but just not providing any goods or service. A pickpocket is also not an “illegal cleaner”, ridding your pockets of possible trash. A pickpocket is also not an “illegal tax collector”. He’s not an “illegal wallet confiscator”. He’s not an “illegal money grabber”.
Again, you’re full of shit. Someone who does business is a businessman. Every mafioso is a businessman. It makes no difference whether the business is legal or illegal.
I love the smell of smug pedantry in the morning!
Milhouse lost the argument when he resorted to ad hominems.
What about calling them illegals or criminals?
Oh here comes Millhouse to the RESCUE!! He seems to have “all the answers” – just like Joe! But, just like Joe, they are usually backassward!! When it’s NECESSARY, he will spout a longwinded, “legal” sounding line of “logic” and probably fool those who are prone to believe the lamestream media. Intelligent people know what he is!
I don’t know why Milhouse picks this battle (or so many others), but I disagree with the downvotes. Milhouse makes a perfectly good argument. No one below has countered it successfully.
Mill house, they are, by law in the statute books defined as “illegal aliens.” And when you have as many millions waived in by an administration with utterly bogus, demonstrably bogus claims of legal for asylum which they are provided bills of parole and court dates in 7-9 years, what you have is an illegal invasion the purpose of which is to devolve the the nation’s population to a demographic more favorable to the Democratic Party.
None of which changes the fact that they are immigrants. So you can take your irrelevant bullshit and stuff it.
The semantic issue is punishing in my shop–K-12 public education, since I teach English Language Development.
To many these days, “immigrant” means an undocumented migrant. I have found this true not only of the “immigrants rights” crowd, whom I loathe, but also, unhappily, in the rhetoric of those who want to take back the border. It leaves the Green Card holder, naturalized citizen, or legal asylee in a kind of rhetorical/semantic limbo. For most of my colleagues, there is only a very rudimentary knowledge of immigration and citizenship; most are mesmerized by Emma Lazarus’ words on the Statue of Liberty, but without realizing that they were never completely true about US immigration. When I give sheltered instruction in history or government to high schoolers who are also English Language Learners, I can explain words like “immigrant” and “emigrant”, as well as legal categories. But I reach only so many.
Aliens, not immigrants
“Illegal Invaders.”
FIFY
I’m so old that I can remember when Brooks was a credible counterpoint to left-wing Mark Shields on PBS. I used to watch the end of the newscast just to see how Brooks would skewer Shields. Those were the good old days.
I’d have a lot more sympathy for Trump if he and his cohorts weren’t working so hard to keep everybody else off of the primary ballot.
Huh??
WTF are you talking about?
Candidates are expected to try things on. Judges are expected to say “no”, unless they have valid claims.
“try things on”? You mean like pantyhose or garters or something? Millhouse, you’ve really lost it today! Rather funny!
Yes. See here, here, here, or here.
Please provide citations to support your delusion.
It doesn’t matter where their law degrees are from. These casees against Trump are all manufactured BS and everyone knows it. I don’t care if a judge from Boise State participated in this governmental lynching of Trump. It would be just as wrong, because it’s not the type of people who are doing this that’s the problem; it’s what they’re doing – abusing their powers, making a mockery of America, and trying to steal control of this country – that is the problem. They are all criminals of the worst sort, no matter where they went to school.
I agree, and they should think twice about what they are doing. If we do devolve into civil war, there are many who will remember actions against the Republic and act accordingly.
If it were judges from Boise state people might accept it. They might trust that if normal judges, who share their lives and concerns, examined the facts and the law and decided that Trump is simply not eligible, then that’s fair enough. But Ivy League judges won’t get the same popular trust, because many people perceive them as disconnected from “real Americans”, living in a bubble, and trying to impose their own values on the whole nation by force.
See what has happened with the Israeli judiciary, where that is exactly the situation; elite judges with values that are very different from those of the people have been openly declaring for decades that their role is to force their values (those of “enlightened people”) on an unenlightened electorate.
You are completely incorrect. No one would accept the government persecution of Trump just because the judges or prosecutors might have been “normal” people. Do you really not understand that people can easily see what complete BS these show trials are and how they are against everything American??
Give me a break. This is not about “the elite”. This is about America-haters, and they come from all schools and “normal” people can recognize them without their diplomas.
Coming from normal judges, people would accept that it’s not persecution. Even if they disagreed with the decision, they would accept that it was made in good faith. Coming from a class that has been increasingly imposing its own values on the rest of the country, people would not accept that.
LOL.
That is utterly ridiculous.
You are ridiculous. You have no respect at all for the rule of law, or for the truth. You insist that everything must go your way. If a decision doesn’t go your way then you immediately reject its legitimacy. That’s despicable. Thankfully most people are not like you.
Double LOL.
You did not address anything about what we are discussing – that people don’t have much of a problem with the insanely BS charges against Trump but are only mad because it’s coming form Ivy Leaguers.
That is just plain stupid. Most people have no idea where the prosecutors or judges went to school. People care about a government out of control, not what school one went to.
Sometimes … lots of times, really, you just make the dumbest arguments.
I see you’re just too stupid to understand what Brooks wrote. The entire point of this discussion has gone right past you, because you’re so stupid. Go play with blocks or cars or something and leave intelligent discussion to people capable of conducting it.
Hereditary meritocratic class? A hereditary ruling class yes, an ideological ruling class yes, and these overlap, but what basis is there for claiming a meritocratic class?
Historically America was a merit based system, at least in theory, but now the Left who control so many of the institutions, and corporations, clearly oppose merit, so how can a hereditary meritocratic class exist?
People keep raising this argument, and it is invalid. The decision is wrong for many reasons, but not for this one. Had Trump actually participated in an actual insurrection, and had all the other reasons not existed, then the fact that he was not charged or convicted would not matter. The decision is wrong not because he wasn’t charged or convicted but because he didn’t do it, as well as for all the other reasons.
Just saw an nbc report that the Michigan Supreme Court told the stupid idiots to take their 14th amendment bullschiff and stuff it (not quite like that, it is a democrat majority SC in Michigan).
Not really. The majority just said “We’re not hearing it”. The dissenter said “The Colorado decision might be a correct interpretation of CO law; I’m not a CO judge so I don’t know. But our law is different, and under our law he stays on the ballot, at least for the primary. Come back if he wins the nomination.”
That’s so obviously the correct position for a court to take, that it hurts to see any taking any other.
There’s a lot of distance between getting a position on a primary ballot, and taking an official government position, and even if all the other exclusions eventually apply, an “insurrectionist” can still be eligible to take the position if two thirds of both the Senate and the House agree. Courts have no place in the process until Congress decides.
It’s a separation of powers thing.
Democrats didn’t allow ballots for Lincoln to be printed in most of the secessionist states for the 1860 elections, so this isn’t new.
Back then, they were “Saving the Republic and States Rights”, now they’re “Saving Democracy”. The more things change…
I’ve seen this claim made, but I don’t see how it can possibly be true, since there was no such thing as official, government-supplied ballots. People made their own ballots by writing the names of their preferred candidates on a piece of paper, or they could get a printed ballot which was distributed by their preferred political party, which had its candidates’ names on it. So there was nothing to keep Lincoln’s name off.
OK, I found the answer. It’s not that the Democrats didn’t allow Lincoln ballots to be printed. It’s that the Republicans couldn’t find anyone in those states willing to run for the electoral college as a publicly pledged Lincoln elector, so there were no names to put on their ballot, In Virginia, where they did have a slate of electoral college candidates, in most of the state they couldn’t find anyone willing to print and distribute their ballot. Generally this wasn’t done directly by the parties but by friendly newspapers, and in most of VA there were no newspapers friendly to the Republicans. They could have had them printed elsewhere and shipped around VA, and had volunteers distribute them, but again they didn’t have anyone willing to do that.
Humm, I wonder why there were no “friendly” newspapers in Virginia? Could it be Lincoln friendly papers would have been burned down? Seems like a de-facto method of keeping Lincoln off the ballot.
The lack of Lincoln-friendly papers had nothing to do with the election, and more to the point it had nothing to do with the state government.
There were no such papers because there was hardly anyone living in those areas who would have bought such a paper. Hostility to Lincoln was nearly universal in those areas, so while such a paper might not have burned down, it certainly could not have stayed in business.
The left and their over-educated elitist mouthpieces better remember one important fact, we own over 300 million firearms, and many of us are approaching the breaking point.
Presuming that we’re all adults, would it be possible to stop calling each other names?
It seems like ever article’s comments are commandeered by Millhouse! He seems to have the liber talking points ready to go for any subject! I’ve asked before if he is a PAID TROLL or just someone who has limited access to the outside world and has a tv that can only bring in cnn! Maybe he is just one of those “highly edumacated” Ivy leaguers! In any case, he should just be ignored and replied to with “sure skippy”!!
not that it is wrong but that it might cause this putz a problem
otherwise, Brooks would be OK with this
Our Miss Brooks at least understands that ballots are the alternative to bullets. If people are denied the former, they will embrace the latter.
I don’t recall if Trump won the Primary in Colorado in 2016 or if he carried the State in November 2016 or 2020, but I am sure excluding him from the ballot in one State will incentivize supporters in other States to make sure they vote. So, yes, I think this unconstitutional move by the Colorado Supreme Court will backfire.